Second Chance
by PerculiarPenny
Summary: Two years after Ianto's death, Jack receives a phone call saying that he has just been admitted to hospital. When he gets there, Jack finds a different Ianto to the one he knew. Jack/Ianto. Set after Miracle Day.
1. Chapter 1

"Jack, just had a phone call from Andy, Weevil sighting over near the university. Want me to go and check it out?" Gwen asked.

Jack looked up from his desk. "Yeah, that would be great."

"Alright, I'll head off now. Did you get any further with us moving back into the old Hub?"

"Well it's all been rebuilt, and apparently filled in."

"What? How can they do that?"

"The council were shocked to find out that it wasn't already filled in, so they decided to do it. Means we're going to have to find someplace else."

"Well obviously, we can't stay here. Anyway, won't be long."

"Right, see you later." Gwen left, and Jack resumed staring at the paperwork on his desk. They had found a tiny office to work out of, but it only just fitted two desks in. As much as Jack had wanted the Hub back, it had been large, practical, and it was where Torchwood had always operated from, the memories of the place were painful. He often asked himself how he would be able to work in a place where he had lost so many people he had known and loved. Maybe finding a new place was for the best.

He glanced at the paperwork once more, and knew that it wasn't going to get done. Jack sighed, stood up, and decided to go out for lunch.

As he sat down in a nearby cafe, he checked his phone. He had a text from Rex over in America. He opened it.

"Hey WWII, got something I need to you take a look at, give me a call later. Rex." Jack looked at his watch, Rex would probably be asleep now, no point calling him yet.

He was just wondering what to do after he had finished his coffee when his phone rang. It was an unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Hello is this Jack Harkness?"

"It is, who are you?" Jack didn't recognise the woman's voice at the other end of the phone.

"I'm calling from St David's Hospital in Cardiff, a Mr Ianto Jones was brought in about fifteen minutes ago. You're his emergency contact."

"What?"

"He was in a car accident. He isn't badly injured, but he will have to stay the night."

"There must be some mistake."

"I can assure you-"

"Ianto Jones is dead. He died two years ago."

"He has been asking for you. I really think you should come and see him." Jack couldn't answer. He hung up the phone. It was impossible. Impossible that Ianto could be alive. He had died in Jack's arms, and that wasn't something you could mistake. And yet, Jack was sure he would have been the first person that would have been called if anything had happened to Ianto. He couldn't help but wonder if there was any chance it could be true, and knew there was only one way to find out.

When he arrived at the hospital Jack headed for reception.

"Hi, I got a phone call, you said Ianto Jones had been brought here? A car accident you said?"

"Hold on a second." Jack recognised the voice as the woman he had spoken to on the phone. "Ah, yes, ward 21, just up those stairs, turn left, through the doors at the end."

"Thanks." Jack headed off up the stairs. He had no idea what he would find in ward 21, but he knew he had to find out. He walked through the doors, and a little way down the next corridor, he found the ward he was looking for. Jack took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

"Jack!" Jack stared. Ianto was lying in a bed just inside the ward, it looked like he had been arguing with the nurse stood next to him. "Where have you been?"

"No," he whispered.

"What?" Ianto looked confused.

Jack walked forwards, bent down and put his arms around Ianto.

"Jack, are you alright?" Ianto asked softly.

"I'll leave you two alone for a minute." The nurse smiled and left the ward.

"I'm fine." Ianto raised his eyebrows

"Come on," he said. "I've got to get out of here. Just tell them you're Torchwood, Owen can make sure I'm ok when we get back to the Hub."

It was then that Jack realised what had happened. This was not the Ianto he had known. This Ianto came from another universe, one where he, Owen, and maybe even Tosh were all still alive.

"I'll sort it." He said, and left the ward. Outside he almost walked straight into the nurse. "We're leaving." He told her.

"Oh for heaven's sake. Not you as well. He can't go anywhere! He's just been in a car accident."

"Is he seriously injured?"

"Well, no, but we still want to keep an eye on him overnight."

"I've got a doctor where I work, he can look after him." Jack lied. He then took out his phone and called Gwen.

"You can't use that in here!" the nurse cried.

"So stop me." Jack spat at her. Gwen picked up the phone.

"Jack, false alarm on the Weevil, turns out it was one of the students lurking around halls. I'm on my way back now."

"That's great, listen, when you get back can you... Can you do a rift activity check for about an hour ago?"

"Yeah sure, any particular reason?

"Just do it, I'll explain later."

"Ok, I'll see you later then." She hung up. Jack headed back into the ward.

"Right, come on, we're getting out of here!"


	2. Chapter 2

"So what were you doing in the middle of road anyway?" They were driving back to the office. Jack still hadn't told Ianto where he was, he knew he had to, he would work it out when they turned up at an office, and not the Hub like Ianto was expecting. But Jack kept putting it off.

"I was crossing it, and then this maniac appeared out of nowhere. Next thing I know, I'm in hospital. I hope they got him. What are you doing?"

Jack pulled over at the side of the road. He couldn't lie to Ianto any longer.

"I know where the car came from. It was there all along. It didn't appear from nowhere, you did."

"Jack what are you talking about?"

"I should have told you straight away, but I just wanted a bit of time, just to pretend that everything was normal."

"Tell me what's going on."

"Ianto," Ianto just stared at him, it looked as if whatever Jack was trying to say was killing him. "You're dead."

"No. I'm here Jack, you're confused or something, I mean, getting a phone call saying I had been hit by a car must have worried you, but I'm fine. Look we'll get Owen to check you over when we get back to the Hub and-"

"He can't. Ianto he died too, and Tosh. You're all dead."

Jack could see how confused Ianto was, he knew he needed to try and explain what had happened, but the thought of going over it again was awful. He never spoke about the days that they had all died. It still hurt.

"I can't be dead Jack, I'm here. Look at me, I'm here and completely real."

Jack shook his head. "You're not from here. I think..."

"What?"

"I think you're from a parallel world. You've fallen through the rift Ianto. Because in this world, you died in Thames House, and I couldn't save you."

Jack could see that Ianto was beginning to realise what had happened.

"The car." He said. "That's why I didn't see it, and why you looked so strange when you saw me there."

Jack nodded. Ianto looked at him, and gently took his hand. They sat in silence for several minutes, neither of them sure what to say. Then Jack spoke.

"We see people, aliens, objects, so many things. We see them fall through the rift all the time. I just never expected it to be someone I knew." Jack knew it was a lot to take in, for both of them, but there was something that had been on his mind since he had realised where Ianto seemed to have come from. "What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"In Thames House. You didn't die, but here, here you did. What was different?"

"I never went in, you went alone."

Jack nodded, of course, he had always known about parallel worlds, and the possibility that in one of them he had made a very different decision that day.

**Thank you so much for the reviews!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you for all the reviews! Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter up, but been a bit busy lately. Going to try and post more often from now on!**

* * *

><p>The two men sat in silence for some time. Finally, Ianto spoke.<p>

"It wasn't your fault."

"How could it not be?" Jack knew even without asking that Ianto was talking about his death.

"I argued with you that day. When you said to stay outside, I argued so much. I wanted to be in there, fighting by your side. Still, in the end, I didn't go in."

"If I had just thought about it..."

"You knew I wanted to go in. It's how I would have wanted to die, fighting for the human race next to you. If I died now that's how I would want to go. So thank you."

Jack bowed his head.

"Come on," Ianto said. "We can't sit by the side of the road all day. Let's get back to the Hub."

"We can't." Jack said as he started up the car. Ianto threw him a confused look. "It's gone, got filled in after it got blown up."

"Ah. So where are we now?"

Jack chuckled. "Oh you'll love this."

* * *

><p>"Seriously?" Ianto exclaimed as he saw the outside of the tiny office above Freddie's Kebabs. "This is where you chose to work out of?"<p>

"Didn't exactly have a lot of choice, but as there are only two of us at the moment it works fine as a temporary measure."

"Why didn't you hire anyone else?" Ianto asked.

"Haven't had much chance."

"Jack it's been two years."

"Yeah well, I went away for a bit, then there was the whole miracle fiasco, we've not been back in the country long, only just back up and running."

"The miracle?"

"You didn't get the miracle? No one died, for a good few months, ended up in America."

"No, must have missed that one. So are we going inside?"

"Yeah come on. Gwen should be back by now."

They headed up the stairs to the office, Jack opened the door at the top and poked his head through it.

"Gwen-" Gwen was frantically typing into the computer, whilst trying to grab her keys, phone and numerous other things at the same time.

"I did the rift activity check," she said without looking up. "Something big over near the hospital, on my way to check it out. Although it's been a while, so whatever it was could be anywhere by now."

"No need." Gwen stopped shoving things into her pockets and stared at him.

"Why not?"

"I had a feeling I knew exactly what had come through, just needed it confirming."

"So, what was it?"

Jack pushed the door open fully, revealing Ianto stood behind him. Gwen's mouth fell open, the phone in her hand fell to the floor.


	4. Chapter 4

Gwen stood with her mouth open for several seconds. Jack could see her trying to work out what was going on in her head. Finally it seemed to click that it had been Ianto, who had come through the rift earlier on.

"Oh wow." She said quietly. "Look at you!"

Gwen walked up to Ianto and threw her arms around him

"So, are you from the past? When abouts?" She asked.

"He's from a parallel universe." Jack explained. Gwen looked slightly confused, so Jack continued. "Every decision we make creates another universe, some with minute differences to our one, some with bigger ones."

"In this universe I died, in my one I survived." Ianto said as they pulled away from each other.

"But, we see the Rift move people and things in time and space, but never through different universes." Gwen said.

"No we don't," Jack agreed. "That's what makes this strange. There are rifts in different universes, there have to be, but they've never sent things through like this, as far as we know anyway. We need to watch the rift activity, watch for any more big spikes like earlier."

Gwen nodded and sat down at her desk. A couple of clicks and she had the rift activity monitor up. Turning away from it she looked back at Jack.

"There's been nothing else. Maybe we should go and check out the place Ianto appeared, see if there's anything there."

"Yeah, good idea. Ianto, remember where it was?"

"Course, we were all stood there just before I disappeared."

"Then let's go." Jack grabbed his coat and left the office, the other two followed behind him.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later they were stood in a road not far from the hospital.<p>

"Right here." Ianto pointed at the pavement. "This is where we were stood. Then I move about two feet into the road, and got hit by that car."

Jack looked around, taking in the area, then he frowned.

"What were you all doing here?"

"You wanted to try something out, you'd been working on something for ages, wouldn't say much about it. But now I think about it, I'm sure I heard you say something about parallel worlds."

"You've never mentioned them here before." Gwen said.

Jack thought about what Ianto had just said, why would he be working on something to do with parallel worlds? And why would he not tell even Ianto about it?

"Jack, have you ever been to one? What about when you were off with the Doctor?" Gwen asked.

"They were all sealed off, that's what the Doctor said. You used to be able to go between worlds, then the Timelords died and so did the other worlds, or at least the connections between us and them did. There are ways of getting between worlds, but it's difficult. Why would I be trying to do it?"

"No idea." Ianto confessed.

"What was I trying?"

"A device of some sort, maybe to get to other universes. Looks like it worked."

"Did Toshiko see it at all?" Jack asked. Questions were filling his head, he needed answers but knew that it was unlikely Ianto would be able to give him all of the information he needed.

"No, Jack she died before you even started to work on it."

Jack fell silent, he had nothing to go on, except that he had been trying to get through to other universes, presumably using the Rift, and it had got Ianto trapped here. But he knew one thing, even there, wherever Ianto was from, whatever he was trying to achieve, he would not leave Ianto stranded like this. He would find him at all costs.


End file.
